What is the contract
In short, contract is an agreements between 2 or more parties on certain venture. Most of us signed contracts many times with our cell phone and internet providers, insurance companies, financial institutions, landlords and many more.
Why contract is important
While some of the contracts are unpleasantly bending and restrictive, in general they are very useful to protect both parties from any surprises. For example, while cell phone company wants to be sure it will get monthly payments for its service, you, in turn, want to be sure to get quality, reliable service on a daily basis with no surprise extra charges.
Web design and development service is no different from any other services that you get from other companies. If web design company is here to make money, it for sure needs to protect itself from excessive work or any possible surprises. From the other perspective, if client ordered a website, he wants to be sure to get exactly what he ordered, in time and on budget.
Unfortunately, sometimes because of the relatively young industry age, sometimes because of lack of understanding the business aspect, in many cases contracts or its important details are overlooked by both parties. This leads to failed deadlines and rising costs, ruined relationship and other business related losses.
When talking about contract in web design and development area, I like to compare it to new house construction. If you ever bought a new house, you probably know how every minor detail is included and how many signatures and initials you need to put while going through the process, especially if you do any upgrades. I think this is how it ultimately should be in our area as well. In décor center, associate is happy to assist you and include your every wish on your home décor, however, each addition is associated with certain cost which you need to endorse by your signature and which will be part of the contract.
Every so often, in the design process, client tend to think that creative process of designing the page is kind of limitless way of applying his multiple requests to make him happy. And this is perfectly fine if client is paying by hour. However if there is a certain, defined/FIXED cost on the design, the process itself, obviously, can not be unlimited. This is client’s call to select right designer which is capable of delivering what the client needs at the agreed price. Unfortunately, quite often, trying to get the lowest rates, client gets also the lowest qualification while targeting award winning website. In most cases it leads nowhere and nothing good happens. As with every other business, you get what you pay for.
Therefore, regardless on what side of the barricade you are the best way to skip problems is to have an agreement or contract, where each side agrees to take certain responsibilities and agree on certain terms and conditions.
What should be in the contract
It depends. If you have a relatively simple project on hand, say, 5 page static website, or basic WordPress site - contract should include deliverables, amounts and payment schedule, deadlines and basic terms and conditions on the events such as contract termination, rights, licensing.
However, if you have a complex project on hand, which normally is associated with significant amounts of money and responsibilities ( as broken deadlines can cost a lot to the client in some cases and they want you to carry your part of responsibility for these potential losses) to be protected it is important to a contract that goes along with technical description of the project. Keep it as 2 separate documents. Technical description must cover every single item of the project: architecture, research, design, coding, development of each single functionality, testing, project management and so on. Although it takes time to create a detailed project description, it totally pays itself off when you start the project. It’s like a road map: each party knows what it will get at certain period of time. If something is changed along the way, it just can be accommodated and, of course, signed. Contract in this case is a separate document which includes all terms and conditions associated with stages of the large project: what, when, who, how much and what going to happen in case of… As a designer, you’d need to go with a client through both technical description and the contract and make sure client understands each item. Also you’d need to make client take it very seriously as it is mutual commitment.
As a client, you want your designer to specify or describe what will happen in such and such situations with your project deadlines (ex. designer got sick, lost his inspiration, meteorite hit the earth, you’ve got unlicensed images on your site and so on), functionality, costs and put it on paper. It’s in your very interests to cover as much details as possible.
In some cases, designer cut corners by providing very general contract kind of “we’re building you a website, you paying us some money” and consider that client accepts the agreement as soon as he gets initial deposit, regardless whether it’s signed or not. While, indeed, it can be considered as agreement, and designer can carry on with a project, from our experience it is much safer for both sides to have detailed contract signed and then get a deposit. When you ask someone to sign something, they just put more attention to the document and therefore, better understand what they are signing up to. So, although, it is more time-consuming, it looks just more professional and eliminates possible misunderstanding.
Who can help in creating the proper contract
There are plenty of resources on how to create proper web design contract. Some of them are:
AIGA: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standard-agreement
BoDo: http://www.businessofdesignonline.com/downloads-forms/
Other good resources on this matter are: http://www.sitepoint.com/ and http://freelanceswitch.com/
You can also get help from business law professionals or law students (some universities have free programs to help small businesses so law students can apply their new skills)
Conclusion
Designer: as long as we treat what we do seriously, eager to make money and have happy customers, there is a clear understanding why you need a contract to protect your skills, time and limit your liabilities.
Client: as long as you want to make sure to get what you’ve ordered, in time and on agreed cost, ensure your investment into your website is not going to be lost (we know unfortunate cases when online business ideas just lost it sense while being developed too long for whatever reason and therefore money and time were just wasted) make sure you have detailed and explained item by item contract from your designer.
Andrei Medvedev, WebExpertise.biz